NWA
In 1947, Northwest started basing employees at the Haneda Airport in Tokyo, Japan and flew people from United States via Alaska. It became the first airline to start direct service from the United States and Japan. On the same year, a flight between Seoul via Gimpo airport and Tokyo was established. A flight to Manila with a stop at Naha airport in Okinawa took place too. In 1949, its service to Shanghai was suspended due to the civil war. That civil war caused the Republic of China to almost collapse. Northwest Airlines moved its base to Songshan airport in Taipei when it became the new capital of China.
With its wide system of transpacific flights established, NWA continued to upgrade its equipment for its transpacific routes. They got their first double-decker plane in 1949 offering comfortable accommodations to its passengers. They also purchased several Boeing 720B aircrafts in 1961 and new Boeing 707s in 1963. In 1970, they retired their Boeing 707s and bought new and bigger Boeing 747 airliners. For long years, NWA became the largest foreign airline servicing Japan. When Japan Airlines or JAL was founded around 1951, Northwest Airlines became involved by leasing its crewmembers and airliners to the new airline.
At the end of the World War II, they opened a hub in Tokyo, Japan. In 1986, they have acquired Republic Airlines and was able to establish major hubs at the Detroit County Airport and Memphis International Airport. When low-cost airlines entered the competition, NWA initiated cutbacks from the removal of in-flight entertainment to its domestic flights to two rounds of employee layoffs. After several cost-cutting initiatives, NWA eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2005 joining Delta Air Lines, US Airways, and United Airlines.
In 2008, NWA was one of the few United States airlines to gain permission from the British government to fly to the Heathrow Airport in London after having to use the Gatwick Airport. It began flying from its hubs in Detroit, Minneapolis and Seattle. After being acquired by Delta, it eventually dropped its Seattle hub in 2009. In the same year, following the merger, Heathrow fights from Minneapolis and Detroit was taken over by Delta flights using their Boeing 767-400ER airliners. In 2009, Detroit-Shanghai nonstop routes were also taken over by Delta Air Lines using its Boeing 777-200ER airliners after they have ended nonstop flights to Atlanta and Shanhai due to weak customer demands on that same year.
After merging with Delta Air Lines, Delta moved its employees from the Eagan office to other offices in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Delta Air Lines put the 108 acre former NWA complex for sale or lease which during that month had a value of $13.7 million.